Last modified: Monday, December 3, 2007 5:56 PM EST HICKMAN: 'Three Cups of Tea' will nourish you After stewing for weeks over a list of titles to recommend for this holiday season, I decided to devote my December column to just one book - David Oliver Relin's "Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote PeaceOne School at a Time." A New York Times bestseller, it embodies the universal message of peace on Earth in a gripping, true story as big and rugged, as splendid and awe-inspiring as the Karakoram mountains of northwestern Pakistan, where much of the action takes place. Raised in Tanzania, the son of missionaries and teachers who "inspired the humanitarian adventure that shaped (his) life," American Greg Mortenson in 1993 decided to honor his deceased sister's memory by climbing to the summit of Pakistan's K2 - the second highest mountain in the world. An experienced mountaineer and trained nurse, he uncharacteristically lost his way, and stumbled into the village of Korphe where he was nursed back to health by the caring and hospitable peoples of Pakistan's Balti region. When he later discovers a circle of Korphe children sitting in the cold, "scratching at their lessons in the dirt with sticks," he realizes he can honor his sister's memory in a more meaningful way, and repay the villagers' kindness at the same time, by building them a school. That promise and commitment sets him on a "path with heart" that would dramatically alter his life, and forever benefit thousands of families from the other side of the world. As Relin tells it, the arduous and daring exploits following that decision sound at times like the preposterous script of a movie superhero - from Mortenson's eight terrifying days in a Taliban prison to his desperate attempts to raise money (580 letters to stars like Oprah Winfrey) while working in a San Francisco Medical Center and living in his car. Yet his experiences more than justify the description. Until he builds a bridge in Korphe, for example, Mortenson clutches a steel cable connected to a box of scrap lumber to pull his large frame across a death-defying gorge above the Baldu River. He sleeps on rooftops, on sacks of rice, and in filthy, rat-infested corners. He suffers long absences from his wife and children, fights fatwas in foreign courts and, despite years of extreme deprivation and seemingly hopeless fund-raising efforts, feels "strangely content." He consistently eats, drinks, smells, and wears things that would fell most of us within a few days. (Just the aroma of Paiyu cha tea "is stinkier than the most frightening cheese the French ever invented.") He masters Balti, Urdu, Pashto and other languages in order to communicate with his new friends. And he manages to bring together Sunnis, Shiites, Pashtuns, Taliban and traditional rival factions in the common cause of educating their children. For over 10 years now, Mortenson and his Montana-based Central Asia Institute have been building schools (currently 58) in the most remote and impoverished regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are educating 24,000 children, and believe that in doing so, they are literally laying the foundations for peace. You change a culture by educating the girls who stay home and become leaders in their communities, Mortenson believes, and also by providing schools as alternatives to the Saudi-funded, terrorist-breeding madrassas. Mortenson passionately asserts that he builds schools first and foremost because he sees his own children in the eyes of children everywhere. But, he also argues, "We need to understand that (the war on terror) is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs." Oliver David Relin's chronicle is spreading Mortenson's message, and helping readers to understand both the man and his humanitarian mission. Relin is, for the most part, an engaging narrator, often beautifully poetic. However, a little judicious editing would have spared me the avalanche of names, places, historical facts and details that at times threaten to bury the story. Raising a cup of kindness "Three Cups of Tea" is a deeply affectionate portrayal of misunderstood tribal peoples remote from us in geography, but bound by a common humanity. In reading it, the promise of peace on Earth seems as inevitable as the three cups of tea the Pakistanis and Afghanis drink to do business. "The first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die," according to Haji Ali, Korphe village chief. Revered in Central Asia and now in America as well, Greg Mortenson is replenishing the coffers of "good will toward all" that this season celebrates, and on which the future of our world depends. May your homes find a special place for "Three Cups of Tea" during this season of hope. KATHY HICKMAN can be contacted at news@thesunchronicle.com.